Words matter and Red Hat Inc. has drawn a careful distinction between an open hybrid cloud and multicloud.

According to the open-source software giant, now owned by IBM Corp., a hybrid cloud coordinates tasks running in different environments. Multicloud is simply using different cloud platforms, regardless of what tasks are needed.

It’s an important difference for Red Hat because its strategy is to meet the needs of customers in the open hybrid cloud, whether that involves bare metal, virtual machines, or private or multiple public clouds, and provide the ultimate seamless experience.

“People are saying that the public clouds are all so different from each other; I might want to run one application for whatever reason in one and a different one in another,” said Paul Cormier (pictured), president and chief executive officer of Red Hat. “They started to realize the operational cost to that, the security cost, and the development cost from an application perspective. Our whole premise since the beginning of open hybrid cloud has been to give you that level playing field, to have all those things all the same no matter where the application runs.”

Cormier spoke with Stu Miniman, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Red Hat Summit Virtual Experience. They discussed the value of both “open” and “hybrid” to the enterprise, and Red Hat’s plans for helping customers over the remainder of an uncertain year. (* Disclosure below.)

An open development model

When it comes to the terminology around an open hybrid cloud, the “open” part is often misunderstood, according to Cormier. It’s not technology driven by one company with a one-company agenda; it’s all about a development opportunity where the community at large can contribute.

“We’re not an open-source company. We’re an enterprise software company with an open-source development model,” Cormier explained. “It’s important because everyone has the same opportunity in terms of the features within the code. Everyone has the same opportunity to contribute, and it’s really a development process that allows the best technology to win.”

The other misunderstood element involves a perception that stellar technology will succeed on its own in the open-source world. Cormier takes a different view. It’s the application of technology across large industry verticals, such as banking, retail and telecommunications, where open source has the best chance for success.

“If I have this great technology and I just open-source it, it will all work and everyone will come,” Cormier said. “That’s not the case. Projects that really succeed from an open-source perspective are the problems that are common and horizontal across a big group of people.”

The understanding around “hybrid” bears clarification in Red Hat’s world as well. When Cormier was named to his position as president of Red Hat in early April, he sent a message to the company that recalled his view of the hybrid world as one where applications would be accessed anywhere at any time.

“It’s all about the application,” Cormier said. “What hybrid really means here is I can run that seamlessly across wherever that footprint is going to live. I see the day when application developers and application users won’t know or care what platform the back end data is coming from.”

As Red Hat moves into the remainder of 2020, amid great uncertainty around the coronavirus and its economic impact, the company plans to focus on helping its customers with re-entry.

“Were working through that with many of our customers,” Cormier noted. “We think we can be a big help here because we’re the platform that runs their business. In terms of what we do as a company, that’s not going to change at all. We’ve been on this path for a long time.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Red Hat Summit Virtual Experience. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Red Hat Summit Virtual Experience. Neither Red Hat, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE